


One Day I'll Die Twice

by flamethrower



Series: On The Way To a Big Nothing/Vast Forever [2]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: "Everybody Dies", GFY, M/M, Season 8
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-31
Updated: 2012-07-31
Packaged: 2017-11-11 02:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you love me?” </p><p>“You’re an idiot,” House says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Day I'll Die Twice

**Author's Note:**

> Most of this got pounded out the night the series finale aired. Then life happened, and it was just finished tonight. RIP, House, MD. You are missed.

House still hallucinates.  It’s harmless, though, and it could be (has been) a lot worse.  Considering that the only fake relationship House is trying to have is with Wilson, Wilson could care less about the hallucinations.  He’s actually starting to get used to them.

“I just don’t understand why you keep hallucinating my dead girlfriend.”

“She’s the closest I’ll ever have to a twin sister,” House tells him, still smiling that goofy, relieved smile that makes Wilson’s insides melt.  Not that he will ever admit it, no matter how close he is to dying.  Wilson learned a long time ago that you don’t just hand information out to House; it’s not nearly as fun.

“Wait.  Does that mean I always wanted to sleep with you, after all?”

House just grins and turns out the light, plunging their hotel room and its single bed into darkness.  “Sleep’s boring,” he says, the same way House says that cancer is boring, and the police are boring, and salmon is boring.  If it’s not something directly to do with Wilson, it’s boring. 

(“Why is salmon boring?” Wilson asks, incredulous.

“Predictable behavior,” House replies.  He’s busy aerating the lox on his plate with repeated fork stabbings.  “They’ve been doing the same thing for thousands of years now.  Salmon are stupid and that’s why they’re dying out.”)

Wilson spent years trying to get this kind of undivided attention from House, usually with horrifying results and broken plumbing.  He’s even resorted to chickens.

This time there is no other shoe, no trick, no card that House will pull at the last moment in a brilliant bout of misdirection.  There isn’t even a stick.

He’s gratified, really, but it’s still confusing.  Wilson hadn’t even been _trying_ to get sex out of it.  Then they had chosen their first hotel room, and Wilson learned that House was grabby and greedy and wouldn’t take no for an answer.  No surprise, there. 

What had been the surprise, the pleasant, tingling shock, had been Wilson’s realization that he didn’t _want_ to say no.   He had, in fact, said yes.  A lot. 

Loudly. 

Someone called the cops about the noise.  House made it seem like it was a prudent thing to hide behind the ice machine down the hall. 

Afterwards, when the cops left and reality caught up, Wilson rounded on House and asked why he felt so strongly that they needed to leave the hotel room, much less hide behind an ice machine.

House had held up a bucket, heavy and full of gleaming, crystalline, water-based treasure.  “Because we needed ice.  Duh.”

House’s nimble hands are on him now, stroking away the pain that’s eating him from the inside out.  Wilson sighs into each touch, jealous of every piano and guitar that House has ever touched.  “If this is pity sex, I will come back and haunt you until the day you die.”

“Cool,” House says, his voice a soft, rough rumble of pleased amusement next to Wilson’s ear.  “You can hang with Amber and Kutner, and do kinky things to distract me.”

“With Amber, maybe, but Kutner isn’t my type.”

“I’m shocked at you, Wilson.  Is it his skin color that turned you off, or his potentially foreign birth?”

Even six months ago, some part of Wilson would have been horrified.  Someone had to be professional, out of the pair of them, and he’d always elected himself.  Now he knows better, in all of the ways he could know, and it’s liberating as all hell. 

“Neither.  He’s too damn nice.”

Wilson doesn’t need light to know that House is grinning from ear to ear, that mad light shining in his eyes.  “So you’re attracted to assholes, then,” he says, just as House’s fingers wrap around the curve of Wilson’s ass and squeeze. 

“Oh, god,” he gasps, and starts to laugh.  It hurts his throat, his chest, to laugh like this, but it also feels like freedom.

Wilson rolls them over so that he’s on top of House, his dying flesh pressed against a body hardened and sharpened by years of abuse.  It’s like playing with warm steel.

“Do you love me?” he asks, and wonders what possessed him to say those words.  Wilson is four months away from death, and still he keeps asking stupid questions.  This one is especially foolish, because he knows that House won’t lie.  Not to him, not right now.

“You’re an idiot,” House says, pulling him close, pulling him down until their lips meet.  “Of course I do.  Do you think I’d fake my own death for just anyone?”

“I think you would have faked your own death years ago if you had realized how much fun you’d have,” Wilson retorts.

“Not without you.  Interminable boredom is not my cuppa.”

“Did you just say cuppa?”

“That’s what all the hipsters are calling it.”  House smiles against his lips, interspacing his words with nips and little growls of pleasure.  “I thought being insufferably British was in vogue.”

He’s going to start laughing again, and that’s not what he wants right now.  “House, just shut up and have sex with me.”

“Pushy.  I thought I was the bottom in this relationship.”

“I will punch you in the face, I swear to God—”

“So what should our safeword be?” House asks, and Wilson cracks up laughing again.

                                                                *    *    *    *

“I just realized something.  Who set the warehouse on fire?”

“I blame Kutner.  I was completely on a nod, as the cool kids used to say.”

“That was a stupid plan!”

“Of course it was stupid.  It was his idea, not mine.”

                                                                *    *    *    *

House never says the word love, and Wilson doesn’t want him to.  There are some things he understands, despite long years of willful blindness, and he’s got three months left and Wilson is in no damn hurry to rush the job.

There are times when he’ll visit the restroom of some roadside dinner to take an increasing number of Vicodin (who’s the junkie, now?), and when he gets back to the table Wilson will find House engrossed in conversation with no one.  Before, he would have been calling Dr. Nolan.  Now he just sits to listen.

Invariably it’s Amber.  Wilson can tell because the conversation will get snippy and heated, and no one can turn House into a raging bitch like a fellow raging bitch. 

House says that he’s just talking to his subconscious in those moments, and to a certain extent, Wilson thinks that’s true.  He’s just not certain that it’s _all_ that it is.  Much like his professionalism, Wilson has always been the agnostic to House’s intense atheism.

“Do you still think there’s nothing out there?” Wilson asks that night.  They’re camping out after ignoring a long progression of hotels.  Wilson wants to spend a few nights under the stars, and enjoy it until he can’t anymore.  He worries at first that House won’t be comfortable.

House laughs at him.  House could sleep in a puddle and not complain.  (And he has.)

House also attracts fireflies in droves.

Doctor Gregory House is blinking fireflies away from his eyes, and three of them are parked on his nose.  “I hate you.  I hate you all,” he says.  Then he gets up and runs around the campfire for three laps in a fucked-up lame horse gallop, shedding indignant blinking insects.

Trying to hold the laugh in hurts just as much as letting the laugh out. 

Ansaid for swelling, Vicodin for pain, and stupid amounts of vitamin supplements for his body to feed on; he used to accept pharmacy adverts, and now he could be one.  “Heroin attracts fireflies.  Who knew?”

“Bullshit,” House grumbles, dropping back down next to Wilson.  “Heroin is low on the list of chemicals concentrated in my body.  Speaking of which, I’ve asked for a public cremation when I die.  Not only will there be thousands of volunteers, but think of the pyrotechnics!”

Wilson thinks the number of volunteers might be lower than House is comfortable admitting.  A shocking number of people were saying nice things about House at his funeral.  Some of it was even true.

Lisa Cuddy was not in attendance.  Wilson still hasn’t forgiven her for that.

“I don’t know anymore,” House says, and Wilson lifts his head as he realizes House is answering his earlier question.  “I used to believe there was nothing.  Scientific evidence has never once suggested there is an afterlife, and empirical evidence is intrinsically flawed.”

“What do you think now?” Wilson asks, waving the fireflies away.  He still blames the heroin.

House shrugs.  “If there is an afterlife, you’d better be available.  It’ll be boring without you.”

                                                                *    *    *    *

The email from Foreman makes Wilson laugh.

 _Wiring some extra cash to your account._ _Stay safe, lovebird!_

House replies from a temporary Gmail account in the Wichita library before they get back on the bikes. 

Half of Princeton-Plainsboro’s servers collapse under the weight of infinitely multiplying copies of _Freebird._

                                                                *    *    *    *

He can’t travel anymore.

House has a fake driver’s license, a _really_ good one, that dubs him Greg House (not MD), from rural southern Kentucky.  Wilsons asks why and discovers that there are enough Houses in that area of the world to populate New Jersey, with some left over for Delaware.  No one mentions anything about Doctor House, and the staff remains oblivious to the presence of one of the greatest medical minds of the 21 st century.

Wilson gave himself five months.  He’s managed four.  Not as long as he’d hoped for, but it could have been worse.  He knew from long personal experience that thymoma could be a raging bitch, too.

It’s the marriage license, though, that pulls him out of the drug-fueled fog he’s spent the last two nights in.  “What the fuck…?” he rasps, and drools for good measure. 

House rolls up the document and uses a towel to gently wipe his face.  “Well, why did you think they were letting me stay in here all the time?  Magical best friend fairies?”

Wilson cracks a smile; cracks because his lips are doing that all the time now.  Cancer eats up moisture.  When he isn’t drooling, he’s parched.  Fuck cancer, anyway.  “Didn’t think about it.  Is that why we’re in California?”

“California is legalese for ‘Gays are A-okay!”’ House quips.  He’s bright-eyed and smiling and pleasant, but there are feral things lurking beneath that smile.  House hates to be helpless.  Cancer makes everyone helpless.

Fuck cancer.  Wilson spent most of his career shaking his fist at cancer and poisoning it and fighting it and it was eating him alive anyway.  “Am I Mrs. House, or are you Mrs. Wilson?”

“I like your name better.  Its genealogical history has more brain cells attached.”

Wilson snickers.  “You’re not actually a House, anyway.  Your mother saw to that.”

“Dear old Mum,” House agrees, making a pleased face. 

“I didn’t actually sign that, you know,” Wilson says, feeling the need to at least make a token protest.

“I’ve been forging your signature for years, just like you’ve been forging mine.”  House grins at him.  “You would have signed it anyway, moron.”

“Yeah.”  Wilson drifts off, smiling and feeling remarkably happy to be married again.  Fourth time’s the charm.  Or whatever.

He comes back in to House arguing with someone, but it’s not an Amber or a Kutner.  It’s a real person, one of Wilson’s nurses.  By the time he’s fully conscious the nurse is gone, but House is busy destroying his cell phone.

“S’not on a contract,” Wilson slurs, and wonders at how faint he sounds, at how hard it is to speak.  It hadn’t been that bad a few hours ago.  “Pay as you go.  You don’t have to break it to avoid paying for this one.”

House throws the phone bits in the trash and paces the room, cane in hand, back and forth.  Wilson is drugged enough that he is content to watch. 

House starts talking, somewhere in the midst of roundtrip number forty-five.   “You stopped breathing last night.”

Much like the marriage certificate, that news pierces the drug fog.  “How long?”

“Less than two minutes.  We never lost your heartbeat, so no oxygen dep,” House says, waving his fingers at his head.  “But your throat’s swelling again.  They’re ready to intubate you.”

“Ah,” Wilson says, and it’s amazing that he doesn’t feel alarmed by this.  “Tell me what _you_ think.”

House stops pacing.  He’s fiddling with his cane, as he always does when he’s worried, or thinking hard, or plotting revenge.  “Medically, they should have done it already.  I wouldn’t let them.”

Oh. 

The hospital is fortunate that the phone was the only casualty.  Wilson is surprised the chairs aren’t on fire. 

Once they intubate him, it’s over, no matter how long they keep him in a medically induced coma.  He’ll be a living, breathing, suffering bag of meat. 

No thanks.

 “Get me a DNR,” Wilson says.  There’s a DNR on file in New Jersey, but he wants one fresh.  He wants to sign that fucker in front of witnesses, so no one among this hospital’s staff can pretend they didn’t know and try to “save” him.

It’s House’s job to save him.

                                                                *    *    *    *

“He took one pill.  One pill!  He took one damn pill in the last two years so he could be in that room with you, and you’re leaving him for it.”

“It’s not just about the one pill,” Cuddy says, crossing her arms over her chest.  “I can’t trust him around Rachel if he’s going to be like this!”

Wilson scowls at her.  _Why is your daughter better than every patient House has ever treated?_ he wants to ask, but doesn’t.  Instead he says, “You’re an _idiot_.”  He’s not afraid to tell her so, anymore.  So she fires him.  So what?

Cuddy’s an idiot if she can’t see that House, in his own way, is trying so hard to be what she and Rachel needs.  Hell, Greg House loathes kids, but he gets along with Cuddy’s girl like ketchup on fries.  (They’ve decimated entire trayloads together.)

Cuddy doesn’t change her mind.  Wilson feels like he’s holding his breath for weeks until the dam finally bursts.

The next time Wilson sees House, it’s been three months since House drove the car straight into Lisa Cuddy’s living room.

Cuddy believed that House did it for revenge. 

Wilson knew it was the act of a man who didn’t know how else to tell the world that Lisa Cuddy had broken his heart.

                                                                *    *    *    *

“Funeral arrangements?” House asks.  Like it’s normal.  Like they’re discussing treatment options back at Princeton-Plainsboro. 

The lines around House’s eyes are like tight wires, and his hand is not quite steady with the pen over the form.  “Want to go back to Jersey?”

“Hell no,” Wilson sputters, his voice growing fainter by the hour.  “I got married in California, I can be buried in California.”  His family has the money to make the trek here, if they really need to see a cold granite stone with his name on it.  “Find the most remote spot you can.  Make ‘em work for it, if they need to see a grave that badly.”

“I could turn it into a scavenger hunt,” House offers, the curve of a real smile on his lips. 

“Nothing illegal,” Wilson advises, smiling back. 

“That limits my options, you understand,” House replies, but he’s taking notes.  House is serious about last requests, because he believes that they are the last thing, the _only_ thing remaining, before a great big black nothing.

Wilson doesn’t believe in nothing.  He’s not sure he believes in a _something,_ either, but he’s willing to keep an open mind. 

If this really is his last thing, his only remaining thing, then by _God,_ let it ring out.  Let it make a statement.  Like, “Steal this license plate and drive east for a mile.”

Real scavenger hunt.  Real fun, too, though he had to pretend like it wasn’t, when Cuddy had held the staff meeting about the fifty missing license plates, three dozen bright pink lab coats, and Cameron and Chase locked into the supply closet with a liter bottle of lube.

Like it was their fault that the liter bottle wasn’t enough.

Wilson realizes he’s smiling.  He might have had three shitty marriages, but… he’s had a good life.  He sees more bright points than dark, when he thinks back on it all, and always, always there, in his thoughts, in his life, in his _refrigerator_ , is House.

“I’m ready,” he says.

House swallows hard.  “The redheaded nurse with the tight ass (‘Our ally,’ Wilson translates) disconnected the safety cut-off on the morphine valve.  Would you like to do the honors, or shall I?”

Wilson breathes out, breathes in, and feels air whistle through his swollen throat.  “You.”  _You, it was always you._

 _Save me_ , he thinks and reaches up with his arms.  It’s a hard thing to do–he’s shaking.  He’s so weak now, and his arms are frail in the way of those who are on Death’s doorstep.  He’s seen it so many times…

House understands, and crawls into the medical bed with him, careful and cautious.  Wilson remembers doing the same for Amber, and his heart twists.  He remembers how hard it was.  Knows how hard this is.

“Don’t quit, all right?” he rasps, when the first morphine hit swirls through his system.  It’s cool, refreshing water trickling through his limbs, and he relaxes into it.  “Please.  No more warehouse fires or bullets or car wrecks or cops.”

“Shut up, you idiot,” House says, tears running down his weathered, whiskered face.  He settles close to Wilson, his wiry arms wrapping Wilson in a tight embrace.

Wilson closes his eyes, and he’s warm and safe in his best friend’s arms.  There are worse ways to die.

House’s breath is steam over his frozen skin, and smells like strong coffee.  “I love you.” 

It’s the only time he’s said it, but Wilson doesn’t mind.  He understands.

‘I love you’ is the only way that House knows to say goodbye.

 


End file.
